Content uploaded by Sabine Hennig
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Sabine Hennig on Mar 24, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Providing geomedia skills beyond (post) secondary education
Abstract
In the last years the way how we communicate and exchange information has undergone significant changes. The relevant processes are increasingly Web 2.0-mediated and enable reflective and participatory practices. As part of this development, the use of geomedia in everyday life (both in work life and private life) has gained in importance. The intrusion of new communication channels and media is closely related to discussions and research on topics such as geo-communication, spatially enabled society and spatial citizenship. A competent handling of geomedia requires everyone to develop new and/or more sophisticated capabilities and abilities. While very recently school education has started to impart geomedia competencies, opportunities for (Geo-)ICT empowerment for adults are rather rare. Suitable activities on adult education and learning should be established for various reasons (e.g. social inclusion, information access). This is in line with efforts of the European Union to address the demand to increase and intensify approaches to adult education and learning. Facing the existing gap between adults’ geomedia literacy on one hand and the promises of a spatially-enabled society on the other, this paper discusses the topic of how everyone in society can become spatially literate, i.e. how adults can develop and strengthen their geomedia competencies. This discussion is illustrated with experiences from the pilot course “Geomedia 55+” (held in cooperation with the “University 55+” at Salzburg University, Austria) that aims at teaching geomedia skills for elderly people.
... Kansainvälisissä tutkimuksissa geomedia yhdistetään usein digitaalisiin menetelmiin ja aineistoihin (Lapenta 2011;Vogler & Hennig 2013). Kuitenkin maantieteilijöiden Inga Grylin ja Thomas Jekelin (2012) mukaan geomediaan sisältyvät kaikki paikkaan kytkeytyvät tai paikkaa esittävät kirjoitetun ja visuaalisen median muodot. ...
... Kuitenkin maantieteilijöiden Inga Grylin ja Thomas Jekelin (2012) mukaan geomediaan sisältyvät kaikki paikkaan kytkeytyvät tai paikkaa esittävät kirjoitetun ja visuaalisen median muodot. Vetääksemme yhteen edellä kuvatut määritelmät (Lapenta 2011;Gryl & Thomas, 2012;Vogler & Hennig 2013; Lukion opetussuunnitelman... 2019), tarkoitamme tässä tutkimuksessa geomedialla paikkaan tai alueeseen sidottua maantieteellistä tietoa, jota tulkitaan ja tuotetaan muun muassa paikkatiedon ja siihen liittyvien järjestelmien, karttojen, diagrammien, kuvien ja uutisten muodossa (kuva 1). Kuitenkin myös esimerkiksi sosiaalisessa mediassa ja videoissa voi olla vastaavanlaista paikkaa tai aluetta koskevaa tietoa. ...
... Geomediaopetuksella voidaan myös vahvistaa nuorten informaatio-ja viestintätaitoja, joita he tarvitsevat voidakseen toimia yhteiskunnan tasavertaisina jäseninä (Vogler & Hennig 2013). Perustaitojen hallitseminen on tärkeää, sillä geomedia tulee vastaan päivittäin perinteisessä ja sosiaalisessa mediassa (Fischer 2014;Fatih 2017). ...
While geomedia is a new concept in Finnish curricula, it merely describes geographical methods and data that have always been central in geography education. In this study, we interviewed geography teachers on 1) how they understand the concept of geomedia, 2) what is the role of geomedia in their students’ everyday lives and how that is reflected in the school education, and 3) what is the impact of geomedia education for geography education in general and for the society. The interviewed teachers work with pupils from ages 7 to 19. The results show, for example, that most teachers consider geomedia as a useful hypernym at the curriculum level, but understanding of the concept is limited and few teachers utilize the term in the classroom. Outside the classroom pupils are mainly exposed to visual forms of geomedia and would need stronger skills to examine it critically. The teachers agree that geomedia education forms the basis of methodological geography skills and supports geographical thinking. Finally, geomedia education provides the pupils with skills to use geomedia in their everyday lives and to acquire many relevant skills in the future.
... Interpreting maps and spatial data within participative and thus, decision support contexts, should not rely entirely on informally acquired practical skills, as this leaves too much room for misinterpretations of stimuli and subsequently misunderstandings of contexts. The development of competences for working with digital geomedia has been widely discussed in formal education and from curricular perspectives (Gryl 2012;Gryl et al. 2012;Vogler et al. 2013). ...
... While secondary schools serve as a competency development framework for general education reaching out to all citizens, further and continuing education in geomedia competences (Vogler et al. 2013) needs to address multipliers (like educators) and actors in disciplines designing and managing participatory processes, such as planners, environmental managers and public policy implementers. These initiatives currently make progress, although fully establishing the principle of educating for a Digital Earth across the full range of relevant disciplines still has a long way to go (Nazarkulova et al. 2023). ...
Participation in societal processes and contributing to decisions are trademarks of an open and democratic society. Successful participation requires informed opinions, which in a majority of issues need orientation in and assessment of spatial context. Ongoing digitization of (not only) geospatial information has greatly increased the accessibility of spatial views, and at the same time facilitates the generation of personal location-centric views and communications. Access to geospatial technologies is the key driver for connecting individuals with the rich and diverse collection of spatial data services. These provide an indispensable context for opinions on issues centred on locations. Apart from this obvious and straightforward case for explicit geospatial enablement and support of participative processes, this paper presents a wider context and issues to be considered by designers of public participation. Drivers of geospatial participation are discussed from the technologies, competences, and policies perspectives, also considering the challenges of prevalent 'nimby' mindsets motivating intellectual shortcuts for some citizens participating in decision processes. In addition, the dominance of social media in public discourse simultaneously facilitates informed contributions as well as posing the risk of less informed mirroring of popular views with a predominantly negative attitude. The final section showcases recent sample elements from the author's teaching experience dedicated to introducing citizen science for collaborative generation of knowledge and in turn using this as a backdrop for participation initiatives. With scientific evidence frequently ignored or confronted with pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, the foundations of today's democracies based on representation and participation are clearly endangered.
... But using spatial products such as online maps in a competent and capable manner requires specific spatial skills on the part of the user. These spatial literacy skills include digital skills as well as the ability to handle spatial data and spatial data products (Vogler and Hennig 2013). Gryl and Jekel (2012), as well as Ferber et al. (2016), discuss the relevance of Child-and youth-friendly cities: How does and can crowdmapping support their... ...
... competences in order to get actively involved in citizenship tasks such as participation: They enable people to critically discuss, comment, communicate, exchange and collaborate using spatial data and maps. Spatial literacy skills still need to be established across society (Vogler and Hennig 2013). Here, educational settings like schools give, in a first instance, the opportunity to build such skills across the target group. ...
To develop child- and youth-friendly cities, data on infrastructure relevant for this subgroup of society is an important asset. The data can be obtained by crowdmapping approaches like OpenStreetMap (OSM). Even though OSM is used for many purposes, the question is whether it is a valuable source of data on child- and youth-relevant urban infrastructure. And, if so, how OSM can support the call for child- and youth-friendly cities. This was examined in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Based on a specially created list of urban features, OSM was analyzed for tags that would be useful to describe the relevant elements and for data available on these elements. The results show that tags exist to describe the majority (80%) of the about 40 element types identified. Although OSM holds abundant data on the elements, data gaps exist. Comparing the OSM data to Open Government Data (OGD) revealed that both OSM and OGD, together deliver a more complete picture of the relevant elements. To increase young people’s contributions to OSM and to make better use of the potential of OSM (e.g. availability of child- and youth-specific information) the following measures are needed: increase OSM’s publicity, address their motivation to add data, support them in mapping, and build their spatial literacy skills.
The definitive version is available at https://journals.openedition.org/articulo/4296
... They are consistent with findings and experiences from fields such as user experience (UX) including usability and accessibility, user onboarding, participation, adult teaching, and eLearning (Table 4 and Table 5). Examples are the consideration of colours, symbols, language (usability, accessibility: [19] and [41]), an attractive and gentle first contact with the materials (user onboarding: [42] and [43]), addressing people's motivation (participation: [39] and [44]), taking existing knowledge into account and focusing on practical work (adult teaching: [45] and [46]), re-use of existing materials, relevance of layout and design, use of multimedia (eLearning: [47] and [48]; guidelines on ESD materials: [49]). ...
Successful Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) requires contemporary methods to achieve its goal, to motivate people to change their behavior necessary to shape a sustainable future and actively work for sustainable development. Such methods include the use of information and communication technologies and digital geomedia. Despite numerous possibilities, digital geomedia still seems to be used little or less in ESD. As a result, the associated advantages remain untapped. An important measure to deal with this situation is to provide suitable (i.e., user-centered) materials to guide the use of digital geomedia in ESD (teaching materials) and to prepare ESD-educators for this (training materials). But how can the need for materials that actually are in line with the requirements of ESD-educators be met? What should such materials look like? This is addressed by the ESDplus project. By considering design approaches, development models, and various methods such as literature review, analysis of similar systems, an online survey, and workshops with the target group, requirements and recommendations were identified. Both, requirements and recommendations, are central to providing materials that support the use of digital geomedia in ESD. Examples are the need to combine analog and digital methods, the consideration of usability, accessibility, and user onboarding criteria, and the taking into account of motivational factors and interests of ESD-educators.
... They are consistent with findings and experiences from fields such as user experience (UX) including usability and accessibility, user onboarding, participation, adult teaching, and eLearning (Table 4 and Table 5). Examples are the consideration of colours, symbols, language (usability, accessibility: [19] and [41]), an attractive and gentle first contact with the materials (user onboarding: [42] and [43]), addressing people's motivation (participation: [39] and [44]), taking existing knowledge into account and focusing on practical work (adult teaching: [45] and [46]), re-use of existing materials, relevance of layout and design, use of multimedia (eLearning: [47] and [48]; guidelines on ESD materials: [49]). ...
Education for sustainable development (ESD) requires new and updated methods. This includes the use of information and communication technologies like digital geomedia. However, despite numerous possibilities, digital geomedia appears to be underutilized in ESD, meaning that its full potential remains unused. This leads to unresolved questions: How is digital geomedia currently used in ESD? and what does it currently look like? What are the obstacles and possibilities for integrating digital geomedia in ESD? How can we address them? To answer these questions, the ESDplus project conducted an online questionnaire among organizations that carry out ESD, e.g., protected areas, museums, nature conservation associations, and zoological gardens. The results show that one-third of the respondents have not yet used digital geomedia, and only 4 % apply digital geomedia in their ESD activities. Even though almost two-thirds see great potential in the use of digital geomedia, a majority still prefer to use traditional, analogue methods in ESD. To improve its use, the following aspects are key factors: providing an overview of digital geomedia; and in particular, their integration in ESD activities introducing options for targeted applications of digital geomedia in ESD, including the provision of suitable training materials.
... WoS (e.g., Abend, 2013;Vogler & Hennig, 2013 testify to the interdisciplinary nature of geomedia studies-stand out even clearer as we turn to the analysis of citation networks. ...
This article explores the formation of and future avenues for geomedia studies. Drawing on a citation network analysis, we map the development of the interdisciplinary research terrain from its origins and identify central citation clusters. The term “geomedia” has been used in the humanities and social sciences since at least the early 2010s. Subsequently, geomedia studies have been advanced through an interdisciplinary scholarship from human geography, media and communication studies, and other related research areas, assessing the increasingly complex interplay between media technologies and the production of space. To detect the origins and growth of geomedia studies as an emerging field, we conduct a bibliographic citation and keyword analysis of 57 references from the Web of Science core collection. The generated charts and network graphs reveal that research on geomedia has mainly evolved within media and communication studies. A citation cluster analysis shows how two sub-communities and approaches have emerged, tentatively called “visual geomedia studies” and “urban-sociological geomedia studies.” A keyword cluster analysis reveals how the approaches are entangled with different theoretical perspectives. Given the societal relevance and the growing vitality of present-day geomedia studies, this article discusses the prospects of both approaches.
... Initiatives in this field (like e.g. (Vogler & Hennig, 2013)) are considered as powerful means to provide and distribute the knowledge needed to contribute to OSM. ...
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is known as the most successful application of VGI. The fact that it is based on user-generated content often leads to the common assumption that OSM data is neutral. These assumptions are legitimate, but the vast majority of OSM contributors are middle-aged, white, male users. Accordingly, OSM data represents the worldview of a delimited social group and therefore lags behind its actual potential regarding the richness and quality of data with regard to diversity. To overcome this, new and diverse user groups have to be recruited. It is therefore necessary to identify the challenges and barriers specific new user groups face. This chapter elucidates these mechanisms based on literature. Subsequently, the authors present a study with teacher training students that identifies challenges of new OSM users. The results indicate that there are three dimensions of potential barriers: the complexity of OSM, the user experience in OSM, and the user interface of OSM.
... Initiatives in this field (like e.g. (Vogler & Hennig, 2013)) are considered as powerful means to provide and distribute the knowledge needed to contribute to OSM. ...
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is known as the most successful application of VGI. The fact that it is based on user generated content often leads to the common assumption, that OSM data is neutral. These assumptions are legitimate but the vast majority of OSM contributors are mid-aged, white, male users. Accordingly, OSM data represents the worldview of a delimited social group and therefore lags behind its actual potential regarding the richness and quality of data with regard to diversity. To overcome this, new and diverse user groups have to be recruited. It is therefore necessary to identify the challenges and barriers specific new user groups face. This paper elucidates these mechanisms based on literature. Subsequently, we present a study with teacher training students, which identifies challenges of new OSM users. The results indicate that there are three dimensions of potential barriers: the complexity of OSM, the user experience in OSM and the user interface of OSM.
... ) ausdrücken: Die auf freiwilligen (und unfreiwilligen) Beiträgen beruhende Geomedienwelt ist männlich (vermutlich auch weiß und Mittelklasse). Es scheint auf Basis der Grundannahmen ganz wesentlich, hier unterschiedliche Nutzergruppen entsprechend und mit adäquaten Didaktiken einzubinden. Dies kann sowohl auf der Zeitleiste abgebildet werden (vgl. Vogler & Hennig 2013; Gryl 2015 in Druck), als auch für unterschiedliche Geschlechter. ...
Spatial Citizenship wurde als Konzept ursprünglich entwickelt, um die technisch orientierte Nutzung von Geomedien im Unterricht um den Alltags- und Laienbezug zu ergänzen bzw. diesen in das Zentrum zu stellen. Dabei wurden bewusst Modelle der politischen Bildung einbezogen und diese mit einer räumlichen Perspektive versehen. Sowohl im Rahmen eines EU-Projektes, als auch in einer Reihe von wissenschaftlichen Publikationen wurde Education for Spatial Citizenship weiter- entwickelt und auch für die Lehrer/innenbildung anwendbar gemacht. Dieser Beitrag stellt das teilweise überarbeitete, und ergänzte Konzept vor, diskutiert die Rezeption und Beispiele für den Unterricht und identifiziert offene Enden hinsichtlich Konzeption und Umsetzung.
URL: http://www.gw-unterricht.at/images/pdf/gwu_137_05_13_jekel_gryl_oberrauch.pdf
Moderne Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (ICT) und insbesondere Geo-ICT unterliegt derzeit einer rasanten Entwicklung. Eine wachsende Anzahl an nutzerfreundlichen (Geo-)Web-2.0-Anwendungen, die verstärke Verbreitung von mobilen Endgeräten (Smart-phones, Tablets) und die zunehmende kostenl
ose Verfügbarkeit von (Geo-)Daten und (Geo-) Services eröffnet neue Möglichkeiten und inspiriert zur Erarbeitung innovativer Konzepte und Anwendungen. Dies erlaubt es auch, (Geo-)ICT in umfassender Form der Bevölkerung zur Verfügung zu stellen. Infolge werden Begriffe wie digitale bzw. geodigitale Gesellschaft verwendet. Um den damit in Kontext stehenden Erwartungen, die rein technologisch viel erlauben, zu genügen, kommt nutzerzentrierten Applikationen steigende Bedeutung zu. Sie unterstützen Nicht-Experten durch ihre hohe Usability und eine explizite Ausrichtung auf Nutzeranforderungen. Dies gilt auch für interaktive, dynamische Internetkarten.
Bei der Entwicklung nutzerzentrierter Anwendungen kommt dem Ansatz des participatory designs
, einem Konzept, das der Integration der Nutzer in den gesamten Entwicklungspro-zess eine wesentliche Rolle einräumt, großer Stellenwert zu. In diesem Zusammenhang eröffnen sich eine Reihe von Fragen: Welche Probleme bzw. Herausforderungen ergeben sich durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Nutzern als zumeist nicht GI-Experten? Welche Werkzeuge bieten sich für eine Realisierung an, wobei von Relevanz ist, dass diese auch durch Nicht-Experten problemlos nutzbar und zugänglich sein müssen? Welche Herausforderungen bestehen im Zusammenhang mit jenem Werkzeug? Welche zusätzlichen Potenziale
eröffnen sich durch den Einsatz von participatory design ? Diesen Fragen wird anhand der Umsetzung einer interaktiven, dynamischen Internetkarte (zunächst als Prototyp) für und mit StudentInnen der Universität 55-PLUS nachgegangen. Dabei möchte dieser Beitrag grundsätzlich für die Situation der Nutzer bzw. der Gesellschaft als Nicht GI-Experten sensibilisieren und Erfahrung hinsichtlich des Einsatzes von participatory design sowie der Zusammenarbeit mit GI-Laien kommunizieren.
Communication and information exchange is increasingly web2.0 mediated, networked and complex. The use and integration of a spatial reference to information, i.e. geomedia, has been gaining importance. As a consequence, these changes and the potential of spatial representations to contextualize learning content account for an increasing relevance of ge-omedia in education. Based on these devlopments a concept of Spatially Enabled Learning makes use of web-based mapping to support interaction and communication in educational contexts via social geocommunication. It links social media with individual spatial representations. The purpose is to make learners capable to be 'produsers' (producer-users) of information with a spatial reference. This is supposed to be helpful in education and everyday life with regard to spatial citizenship, i.e. reflective and participatory practice. The idea of spatially enabled learning focuses on the vision to enhance both learning and teaching processes, as well as to contribute to a more global understanding through linking learning processes with spatial representations. This contribution discusses two main topics: a) the role of space & spatial representations in everyday life and in learning processes, and b) conceptual tools needed for that. The concept of social geocommunication mirrors the shift from stand-alone web mapping applications to collaborative web mapping applications and finally towards social web mapping applications. In this context there is a variety of recent tools that already cover the prerequisites of spatially enabled learning. This paper provides a rudimentary conceptual framework to integrate existing tools and learning.
Hintergrund der folgenden Überlegungen ist die medien- und – davon gibt das vorangestellte Bild (Abb.1) ein Beispiel – kunsttheoretisch fundierte Annahme, dass kaum etwas so große Bedeutung für die Strukturen einer Gesellschaft und die Formen einer Kultur hat, wie die jeweils „geschäftsführenden“ Verbreitungsmedien.
This article explores starting points for spatial citizenship education and discusses fields of competence needed for active spatial citizenship. The use of geoinformation systems at thesecondary-school level has been considered mainly as preparation to join the geospatialworkforce and as a support tool to encourage spatial thinking. While this approach definitelyhas benefits in arguing for a wider set of competencies acquired by geoinformation-basedlearning, it has frequently been linked to instrumental knowledge, and misses out on thesocietal consequences of geoinformation use. The concept of spatial citizenship attempts toaddress these shortcomings. Originating from the individual and collective appropriation of social space, it supports learners in acquiring competencies that will enable them toparticipate more actively in society through the critical use of geoinformation. Spatialcitizenship adds an explicitly spatial domain to citizenship education.
The purpose of geo-communication is to bridge the gap between reality and data sources on one side and a reasonably basis for decision-making on the other side. This is achieved through sev-eral types of activities, where web-services and spatial data infrastructure (SDI) as well as knowl-edge of communication-theories play important roles. The introduction of web-services as index-portals based on geo-information has changed the conditions for both content and form of geo-communication. A high number of players and interactions as well as a very high number of all kinds of information and combinations of these characterize geo-communication carried out through web-services. This paper discusses the nature of geo-communication put into relation to the different com-ponents of SDI, as well as the impacts thereof. Awareness of the complexity is necessary, and structure is needed to make it possible to handle the increasing complexity. Modern web-based geo-communication and its infrastructure looks very complex, and it will get even more complex! Therefore there is a strong need for theories and models that can de-scribe this complex web in the SDI in the perspective of modern geo-communication.
How is the Googlization of space, people and things affecting the production and dissemination of knowledge within society? Which spatial patterns characterize the searching and finding of information on the Web, and vice versa? Beyond doubt, the spreading GeoWeb in general and the user-driven production of geo-referenced information in particular, has pluralized the representation of spatial conceptions in global networks of communication. But it has also created a domain of scarcity within digital information. Increasingly, the Web – which once held the promise of unimpeded access to the wide world – is beginning to segment our view of the world through social and spatial filtering, with implications for various societal action fields. On the one hand we are dealing with a ‘Backend Googlization’ through the way localization technologies profile countries, cultures and communities, but on the other, we are dealing with user practices that are changed by ‘Frontend Googlization,’ created through individual appropriation of new geomedia technologies.The aim of this discussion paper is firstly to provide an overview of current georeferencing and localization services, and secondly to introduce and discuss their appropriation practices and their role in the societal processes of the creation of order and institutionalized arrangements. To this end, the paper takes geomedia to be an integral part of the everyday constitution of reality that renews the relationship between the Web and the social ground. It argues that the role of geomedia in the processes of the creation of order (within and through the Web) is constituted through specific production and consumer practices. This conceptualization of geomedia as cultural products distinguishes the paper from already existing research projects in the fields of media studies, geography, and critical GIS/cartography. Finally, relevant policy areas are deduced from the interlocking description of practices and social impacts of geomedia technologies. The consequences of the analyzed Googlization of space for social and political spheres of activity are as follows. First, we can recognize a repersonalization of the Internet, through the mobilization of media, but also through the ever greater importance of social networks. Both of these factors are increasingly turning the public space into a semi-public, more and more privatized and personalized space. This development is strengthened by the currently favored political efforts at regulation, in that all geographic location data are allocated the same protection rights as any other type of personal data. Secondly, we can detect a reterritorialization of the Internet, in that ever more contents are being georeferenced, either through cartographic visualization (GeoWeb), or through adaption to the geographical origin of the IP address (geotargeting). Space is thus becoming classifiable sociologically and available for exploitation economically. In this case, mobile Internet applications, which can be located per se and thus can permanently provide us with a ‘sense of space,’ are acting as an additional catalyst. Both developments, that of repersonalization and that of reterritorialization, are making the Internet less and less of a virtual reality. Instead, they lead to more calculable Web practices and therefore a more account-able Web: a medium that is at once ‘able to give account of’ and ‘able to be accounted for’ with reference to social action.